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Dankrad Feist, a former researcher at the Ethereum Foundation (EF), called on the Ethereum community on May 21 to establish a new organization with a minimum initial capital of $1 billion, as the EF faces mounting pressure over debates surrounding its treasury, leadership, and ETH’s value-accrual model. Feist argued that this organization needs to align its economic interests directly with Ethereum, remain accountable to the community, and secure long-term funding from staking revenue.
Feist’s $1B Proposal
Feist argued that Ethereum currently lacks an organization with a clear mandate to protect ETH’s economic interests. In a post dated May 21, he stated that the EF currently holds less than 0.1% of the total ETH supply and has no direct revenue stream from staking or network fees. Therefore, according to Feist, it is difficult for the EF to act as an entity with incentives strong enough to drive ETH’s economic value.
The way to save Ethereum: The community needs to create an organization that’s economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it.
The EF now holds less than 0.1% of all ETH. There is no flow of Ethereum staking or fee revenues to it.
If we want to get Ethereum back to…
— Dankrad Feist (@dankrad) May 21, 2026
His proposal includes a new organization with at least $1 billion in initial capital, a competent leader, a board accountable for the goal of increasing ETH’s value, and a long-term funding mechanism. Feist also suggested that a portion of staking revenue should be directed to this organization through a governance mechanism that can be adjusted over time.
Notably, Feist is not just calling for more grants. He is questioning the power structure and incentives within Ethereum, particularly the gap between the EF’s neutral role and the growing expectations from ETH holders for an organization with clearer accountability for ETH’s economic growth.
Ethereum Foundation Under Scrutiny
The Ethereum Foundation has long operated as a non-profit organization supporting research, client development, grants, and public goods infrastructure for Ethereum. The EF does not have an official mandate to pump the price of ETH. However, that approach is coming under closer scrutiny as Ethereum competes with new L1s, L2 ecosystems, and crypto infrastructure companies with more focused growth strategies.
Feist stated that the EF currently holds less than 0.1% of the total ETH supply, raising questions again about the size of the foundation’s treasury. However, this figure should be interpreted with caution, as public data can vary depending on how liquid ETH, staked ETH, and on-chain labeled wallets are calculated.
The EF has also begun changing its treasury management in 2026. CoinDesk reported in early April that the EF moved closer to its goal of staking 70,000 ETH after staking approximately an additional $93 million worth of ETH in a single day. The article also cited Arkham data showing that the EF still has over 100,000 unstaked ETH in tracked wallets. This indicates that the foundation is shifting a portion of its treasury to staking yield, though debates over the scale of holdings and incentive alignment remain unresolved.
Pressure is further mounting due to a wave of personnel departures from the EF. In May, Carl Beek and Julian Ma announced their departures from the organization, extending a streak of departures in 2026. These personnel changes do not automatically signify a crisis, but they raise questions about leadership and execution at a time when ETH’s economic narrative is being questioned.
The ETH Value-Accrual Debate
Feist’s proposal comes amid a broader debate over the widening gap between Ethereum’s scalability and ETH’s value-accrual mechanism.
The way to save Ethereum: The community needs to create an organization that’s economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it.
The EF now holds less than 0.1% of all ETH. There is no flow of Ethereum staking or fee revenues to it.
If we want to get Ethereum back to…
— Dankrad Feist (@dankrad) May 21, 2026
Zach Rynes, also known as ChainLinkGod, argued that the “ultrasound money” narrative was once very strong because it linked adoption to revenue, burns, and the potential for ETH to become a deflationary asset. According to him, this thesis weakens as high-value fee streams like MEV and congestion fees shift more toward Layer 2, while Ethereum L1 focuses on data availability and settlement. Rynes also doubts the new thesis that ETH will naturally become the store of value in DeFi, as many on-chain markets are being priced in stablecoins like USDC instead of ETH.
The issue lies in the trade-off of the rollup-centric roadmap. Dencun and EIP-4844 make it cheaper for L2s to submit data back to Ethereum. But lower L1 fees also reduce ETH burns and make the value-accrual story harder to explain. Ethereum may be winning the infrastructure war, but the market still wants a clearer answer on how the ETH token benefits from that infrastructure.
How Big Is a $1B Ethereum Fund?
According to CoinMarketCap, ETH is trading around $2,120 on May 24, with a market cap of approximately $255.93 billion and a circulating supply of around 120.68 million ETH. With that scale, Feist’s $1 billion proposal is equivalent to about 0.4% of Ethereum’s market cap.
ETH price chart (1M). Source: TradingView
One billion dollars is a large number compared to a typical grants budget, but it is still small compared to a network valued at over $250 billion. This indicates that Feist is talking about an organization with influence at the ecosystem strategy level, not just a fund to support small projects.
The Governance Question Behind Feist’s Proposal
Feist’s proposal is not yet an official plan. Big questions remain open: who will fund it, how the board will be selected, how accountability to the community will be handled, and whether the new organization will complement or compete with the Ethereum Foundation.
The main bottleneck is the long-term funding source from staking revenue. If it comes from parties voluntarily redirecting their yield, the proposal could move in an independent direction. If it requires changes at the protocol level to allocate revenue to a separate entity, the debate will be more complex as it involves Ethereum’s neutrality, governance, and social consensus.
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